The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

This shouldn’t be all that surprising given that Barack Obama gleefully weaponized the FBI, Department of Justice, and various intelligence agencies, and criminalized political differences in the process. A radical zealot with a desire to fundamentally transform the United States, the 44th president had a limited sense of boundaries. Obama was more Third World caudillo than president and he was never troubled by hijacking governmental powers to hurt his opposition, as the conservative groups targeted by his IRS can attest. His race-obsessed first attorney general, Eric Holder, turned the Justice Department into a virtual arm of the Democratic Party, using the agency to punish the Left’s enemies and let allies run wild. His second attorney general, Loretta Lynch, surreptitiously met with Bill Clinton in an airport hangar, presumably to cut a shady deal to let Hillary Clinton escape punishment for the many crimes she committed in office.

"It’s clear there was a nefarious conspiracy" between federal officials to defeat Trump, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett told Sean Hannity after the hearing. Jarrett added that when the plot didn’t succeed, the conspirators switched to Plan B, which he described as, “Let’s just say there’s a crime and then we’ll just search for a crime.”

At the House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Rod Rosenstein, the second-highest-ranking official at the Justice Department and the man who appointed Russia probe-leading Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, gave a clean bill of health to Mueller’s ongoing witch hunt aimed at reversing last year’s election result.

“I know what he’s doing,” Rosenstein said. “He consults with me about their investigation, within and without the scope.”

The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), expressed alarm at the ever-expanding investigation, saying, “We are now beginning to understand the magnitude of this insider bias on Mueller’s team.” As previously reported, there were nine Democrat donors on the team of 15, and one member had even worked for Hillary Clinton.

According to Goodlatte, this bias was on display in investigator Andrew Weissmann’s stated “awe” of fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for disobeying President Trump, and investigator Jeannie Rhee’s representation of the irretrievably corrupt Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

“Aren’t DoJ attorneys advised to avoid even the ‘appearance of impropriety’?” Goodlatte asked, saying the “potential bias” of certain career Justice Department officials and lawyers on Mueller’s team was “deeply troubling.” “DoJ investigations must not be tainted by individuals imposing their own political prejudices.”

Committee members learned that Peter Strzok, the principal investigator in the Hillary Clinton email scandal, was exchanging pro-Clinton and anti-Trump messages throughout his extramarital affair with lawyer Lisa Page, who was working at the time for FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. McCabe served as acting director of the FBI from May 9 when President Trump fired then-director James Comey until Aug. 2 when new director Christopher Wray took over. While serving as acting FBI director, McCabe was involved in the email investigation.

McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, was a Democratic candidate in 2015 for District 13 of the Virginia State Senate. Her campaign received nearly $675,000 in donations from the Virginia Democratic Party and Common Good VA, a political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a slippery longtime Clinton flunky. Mr. McCabe failed to recuse himself from the Clinton email probe until Nov. 1, 2016, which was four days after Comey, then the FBI director, announced the agency had reopened the investigation into the emails after finding new data on computer hard drives belonging to former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), the now-imprisoned sex-offender husband of Hillary’s top lieutenant, Huma Abedin. It was also eight days after the ties between Mrs. McCabe and McAuliffe became public knowledge.

Disturbingly, Strzok, who was later removed from the investigation by Mueller and demoted by the FBI for his texting misconduct, apparently relied on the discredited “piss-gate” dossier from opposition research firm Fusion GPS which was working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Among the dossier’s ridiculous claims was that President Trump hired prostitutes in Moscow to urinate on a hotel bed. The fanciful file was assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele based on information provided by Russian government operatives. The FBI reportedly paid for the dossier and may even have used it to obtain warrants to snoop on Trump associates from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Fusion GPS has acknowledged in court documents that it paid a senior Justice Department official’s wife to dig up dirt on Donald Trump, the Daily Caller reports. The company stated it hired Nellie H. Ohr as a subcontractor to assist with “research and analysis of Mr. Trump.” Ohr is married to Bruce G. Ohr, who was associate deputy attorney general until his recent mysterious demotion at the Justice Department.

At an oversight hearing last week, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) said the watering down of the language about Clinton was done “so she could escape prosecution and thus stay in the race against Donald Trump.”

Text messages between Strzok and his mistress that were released by the congressional committee show the two Hillary supporters tag-teaming then-candidate Trump as early as 2015.

After Trump reportedly said it hadn’t been proven that Russian President Vladimir Putin had killed anyone, Page texted: “What an utter idiot.”

In August 2015, Page texted to Strzok, "I just saw my first Bernie Sander [sic] bumper sticker. Made me want to key the car." Strzok answered, "He's an idiot like Trump. Figure they cancel each other out."

In March 2016 Page texted: “God trump is a loathsome human….omg he’s an idiot.”

“He’s awful,” Strzok responded.

The same month Page seemed worried their texts could be discovered. "So look, you say we can text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can[’]t be traced," she texted.

In longer text messages the two lovers bashed Trump in greater detail.

Trump “appears to have no ability to experience reverence which I [sic] the foundation for any capacity to admire or serve anything bigger than self to want to learn about anything beyond self, to want to know and deeply honor the people around you," Strzok wrote. Page replied, "He's not ever going to become president, right? Right?"

On Election Day, Strzok was overcome by horror. After seeing a map indicating Trump was winning, he called it "fucking terrifying." A week later the two interlocutors were shocked to learn that then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) was likely to be nominated as attorney general. "Sessions for AG," Strzok wrote, alongside a profanity. Page shot back, "Good god."

Strzok and Page griped about other Republicans, too. Page texted a wish that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) "fails and crashes in a blaze of glory." Strzok replied by writing that the GOP "needs to pull their head out of that ass. Shows no sign of occurring any time soon."

One text-based discussion between the two suggests something was afoot that was much more sinister than merely complaining about politicians.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok wrote Aug. 15, 2016.

“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40,” Strzok texted.

If “Andy” is Andrew McCabe, which would make sense given that Page was McCabe’s subordinate, this means Strzok, Page, and McCabe may have had a conversation about a plan to take down Trump. The “insurance policy” could be Strzok’s way of describing his opportunity to sabotage Trump’s presidency from inside goverment.

“Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace,” Page texted.

“I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps,” Strzok responded.

“Rather than wearing stripes like a referee, the Mueller team overwhelmingly ought to be attired with Democratic donkeys or Hillary t-shirts, not shirts that say ‘Make America Great Again,’ because I think the American people deserve more than the very biased team they have under Mueller,” Rep. Chabot said. “It’s really sad.”

Having a political opinion is fine, even if you’re an FBI investigator.

Strzok, Page, and McCabe, like all Americans, have constitutionally protected rights.

But plotting to sabotage or overthrow a duly elected president, if that’s what these FBI employees were planning, is not one of those rights.

Is Trump aware of the Arafat-inspired mantra that calls for "a million shaheeds to march on Jerusalem"?

Trump's declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital city
aroused, unsurprisingly, a massive wave of opposition in the Arab and
Islamic world for two main reasons – one religious and one nationalist.

The
religious reason is rooted in Islam's conception of itself as a
faith whose mission is to bring both Judaism and Christianity to an
end, inheriting all that was once Jewish or Christian: Land, places of
worship and people. In Islam's worldview, Falestin in its entirely
belongs to Muslims alone because both Jews and Christians betrayed Allah
when they refused to become followers of His prophet Mohammed, the
punishment for that being expulsion from their land and the forfeiture
of all rights to it.

Throughout the history of Islam, Muslims
turned churches into mosques, including: The Great Mosque of Ramle, the
Beni Omaya Mosque in Damascus, the Hagia Sofia of Istanbul, and many
Spanish churches. The reason for this is the belief that Christianity,
like Judaism, was nullified by Islam, making churches unnecessary.

The prophets
revered by these obsolete religions are Muslims, according to Islamic
tenets. That list includes Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
Aaron and others – all of them Muslims. And, according to Islam,
Solomon built a mosque, not a Temple, in Jerusalem. The fifteen hundred
year gap between the reign of King Solomon and the birth of Islam is of
no import to true beleivers.

Jews and Christians can be protected under Muslim rule by being subservient to Islam in what is known as dhimmi status,
deprived of the right to own land, bear arms and, naturally, not
allowed to harm Muslims. Dhimmis are forced to pay a head tax (jyzia)
and are to be kept in a downtrodden state, as is the Quran mandates.
In Islam's view, Jews are not a nation but a collection of communities
to be found in various countries: A Jew in Poland is a "Pole of the
Mosaic religion" and a Jew in Morocco is a "Moroccan Arab of the Mosaic
religion."

Suddenly, towards the end of the 19th century, it all
changed. Jews began coming to Falestin in ever increasing numbers
and the Zionists invented a new nation, the "Jewish People" and decided
that the land holy to Islam is their homeland and known as Eretz
Yisrael. They built communities and a protective fighting force even
though, as Jews, they were not supposed to be allowed to bear arms.

In
1948, the Jews actually declared a state, although they were not
allowed sovereignty either, and in 1967, they "conquered" Judea and
Samaria and East Jerusalem.

They now attempt to pray on
the Temple Mount, making it a distinct possibility that Judaism has
returned to being an active, live and even dynamic religion. This
brings the very raison d'etre of Islam into question, as, after all,
Islam came into the world in order to make Judaism obsolete.

Muslims loyal to their religion and aware of this danger cannot possibly accept the existence of a Jewish state, not even a tiny one on the Tel Aviv coast.
To them, Israel as the state of the Jewish people is a theological
threat to Islam and only later a nationalistic, political, judicial or
territorial threat.

Along comes Trump and authorizes Israel's
existence by recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, a double blow for
Islam: Trump, a Christian, has granted recognition to the Jews!! This
must be a Christo-Judaic plot against Islam, and it infuriates the
Muslim world. Trump's Declaration reminds them (and also several Jews)
of the Balfour Declaration exactly a century ago, conncerning which the
Arabs continue to accuse the world, saying: 'You made the promises of
non-owners to those who do not have the right to be given those
promises.''

Accordingly, during the week following Trump's
declaration, we have seen Muslims all over the world expressing their
fury at the stamp of approval granted the Jewish State, despite its very
existence being opposed to that of Islam. Leader and ordinary citizens,
men and women, have been going out to the streets to demonstrate their
inability to live with the fact that Trump, a Christian, has recognized
the capital chosen by the Jewish nation and by extension, the right to
their own land.

The disturbances in Wadi Ara, in central Israel,
were another manifestation of Muslim fury, as rioters attempted to block
the main road and damaged a public bus. The location is not
surprising, because the Wadi Ara area includes the city of Umm el Fahm,
where the main concentration of the Northern Branch of the Islamic
Movement headed by the infamous Raed Salah is to be found. The Northern
Branch has been declared illegal along with some of the smaller
organizations it fostered, resulting in its members having no lawful way
to express their fury at the existence of the state of Israel, so that
they attempt to act in the public, open space as individuals - without
an organizational identity.

Nationalistic motives

Anyone
with eyes in his head and an active brain knows and understands that
the entire raison d'etre of the Palestinian nationalist movement is
based on negating the Jewish people's right to its land and state. The
Palestine Liberation Organization was established in 1964 when the only
"occupied" areas were Tel Aviv and Haifa. Its mission was to destroy the
State of Israel, a goal Arabs expressed openly at the end of the 1948
War of Independence.

Despite what certain naïve people think, the
PLO has never amended its Charter calling for the destruction of Israel
and the Oslo Accords and the agreements with the PLO that followed in
their wake were worth nothing These babes in the woods included Yossi
Beilin, Shimon Peres, Yitschak Rabin, Yossi Sarid, Shulamit Aloni, Ehud
Barak, Ehud Olmert and a good many others, who, despite proofs of Arafat
and his inheritor Mahmoud Abbas' treachery staring them in the face,
continued to foster the illusion of peace in the hearts of war-weary
Israelis. This put the country to sleep, allowing it to be hit with a
fatal plague while still drunk on the perfume of the very temporary
peace those true believers had achieved.

The goal of the Palestine
National Movement is the creation of an artificial Palestinian nation -
from scratch because historically, there has never been a Palestinian
nation – and grant it permanence by means of an Arab country built on
the ruins of Israel, not alongside it. This is why there is not one map
of Palestine to be found in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Every Palestinian
map portrays a Palestine in the colors of the PLO flag and extending
from the Mediterranean sea to the Jordan River.

Note the PLO keffiya, with "Our Jerusalem" on the right and "Falestin" on the left.

PLO keffiya

INN:MK

The
world, and especially Europe, is divided between innocent
know-nothings who support a Palestinian State in order to achieve peace
and Jew-haters who fully understand the PLO's intentions and support
them wholeheartedly. The entire Arab world, including those who signed
peace treaties with Israel – Egypt and Jordan - wilfully ignores the
PLO's real intentions, treating it as the only legitimate representative
of the Palestinian people. If the PLO succeeds in carrying out its
plans, no one in Jordan or Egypt is going to mourn Israel's demise.

Arafat's
followers know that if they succeed in moving Jerusalem outside the
borders of Israel, a large number of Jews are going to lose all hope
and leave Israel for the countries from which they or their parents
came. This will mean the beginning of the end for the Zionist
enterprise, because there is no Zionism without Zion. That's why they
expend so much energy on Jerusalem, taking advantage of the fact that if
most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of
Israel, Jerusalem becomes the weak link in the chain holding Israel
together.

Arafat attempted to frighten the Israeli with the
slogan: "A million shaheeds will march on Jerusalem," meaning that
millions are willing to jput their lives on the line in order to free
the city from the clutches of the Zionists. This mantra has
been internalized in Islamic society and can be heard at anti-Israel
demonstrations all over the world.

In comes Trump and recognizes
Jerusalem as Israel's capital city, giving the Palestinian nationalist
narrative a hard blow and Israel a kind of insurance policy. This
maddens all the Arabs who flourished on the dream of destroying Israel
during the golden Oslo Agreement years, because it has now becme clear
that a very powerful nation, the USA, does not see itself a partner in
that dream and is even willing to act against it.

The Arabs , in
general, and particularly the Palestiinians, can already picture the
dominos falling. The Czech Republic, Hungary and other important states
plan to move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing
the city as Israel's capital. They noticed that in April of this year,
eight months ago, even Russian President Vladimir Putin declared his
recognition of Western Jerusalem as Israel's capital city. There was no
outcry, verbal or otherwise, in response to Putin's declaration, for
one simple reason: The Arabs are deathly afraid of Putin, after he made
crystal clear to what lengths he is willing to go during the war in
Syria, and they carefully refrain from reacting to his statements or
decisions.

Conclusions:

For both religious and nationalistic reasons, the Arabs and Muslims are incapable of accepting Israel as the Jewish State.

The
question we are forced to ask ourselves is whether we in Israel, Jews
and Christians, are going to recognize the Muslim and Arab problem , but
tell them in no uncertain terms that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews
and you are going to have to learn to live with it" or are going to give
in to the Arab and Muslim dreamers who are incapable of accepting a
reality in which the Jewish religions is alive and well.

Translated from Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky

Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan
University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years,
specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic
groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab
media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news
programs in Israel.Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21401 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Pew report entirely ignores the key issue of how Europe will
integrate tens of millions of Muslim migrants whose values —
cannot be reconciled with those of Europe's Judeo-Christian and
liberal-democratic heritage.

Pew's baseline estimate of the number of Muslims currently in Europe — the estimate upon which its future projections are calculated — has been undercounted by at least five million Muslims.

The UCIDE figures — which posit that there are roughly 750,000 more Muslims in Spain today than the estimate proffered by Pew — are widely recognized in Spain as the most accurate assessment of the Muslim population in that country. It remains unclear why Pew failed to mention the UCIDE report in its source appendix.

In Germany, Pew "decided not to count" the one million plus Muslim asylum seekers who arrived in the country in 2015/2016 because "they are not expected to receive refugee status."

The Pew report entirely ignores the key issue of how Europe will integrate tens of millions of Muslim migrants whose values — including anti-Semitism, polygamy, female genital mutilation and honor violence — cannot be reconciled with those of Europe's Judeo-Christian and liberal-democratic heritage.

Europe's Muslim population is set to double — and possibly triple — between now and 2050, according to new projections by the Pew Research Center.

The projections, contained in a report, "Europe's Growing Muslim Population," confirm what has long been common knowledge: decades of declining European birthrates, coupled with mass migration from the Muslim world, are fast-tracking the Islamization of Europe.

The demographic calamity facing Europe, however, is even worse than the Pew report lets on. A critical analysis of the data shows that Pew's calculations of the current Muslim population in key European countries are partial and incomplete — and in some instances inaccurate. As a result, Pew's baseline estimate of the number of Muslims currently in Europe — the estimate upon which its future projections are calculated — has been undercounted by at least five million Muslims, whose presence in Europe will significantly increase the future size of the continent's Muslim population.

The Pew report offers three projections based on three different scenarios involving migration during the next three decades. The baseline for all three scenarios is the Muslim population in Europe (defined by Pew as the 28 countries presently in the European Union, plus Norway and Switzerland), estimated at 25.8 million (4.9% of the overall population) as of mid-2016 — up from 19.5 million (3.8%) in 2010.

The first scenario envisions a complete halt to Muslim immigration between now and 2050. This scenario will not occur, of course, but was modeled to determine what the future might look like with migration removed from the equation.

In this scenario, Europe's Muslim population is projected to increase by about 10 million people, from an estimated 25.8 million Muslims in 2016 to 35.8 million in 2050. In percentage terms, the Muslim population would rise from about 5% of Europe's overall population today to 7.4% at midcentury — not only because Muslims are growing in absolute numbers, but because the non-Muslim population in Europe is expected to decline by roughly 10%.

A second, "medium" migration scenario assumes that all refugee flows will stop as of mid-2016 but that recent levels of "regular" migration to Europe will continue (that is, migration of those who come for reasons other than seeking asylum). This is the scenario most likely to occur, according to Pew. Under these conditions, the number of Muslims in Europe could reach 57.9 million, or 11.2% of Europe's population in 2050.

Finally, a "high" migration scenario projects the record flow of refugees into Europe between 2014 and 2016 to continue indefinitely into the future with the same religious composition — namely Islamic — in addition to the typical annual flow of regular migrants. In this scenario, the number of Muslims could reach 75.6 million, or 14% of Europe's population by 2050 — nearly triple the current share.

The impact of these scenarios on different European countries is astounding: Under the high-migration scenario, for instance, the Muslim population of Sweden — a formerly homogeneous Christian country — would reach nearly one-third (30.6%) of the overall population by 2050, followed by Cyprus (28.3%), Austria (19.9%), Germany (19.7%), Belgium (18.2%), France (18%), Norway (17%), Britain (16.7%), Denmark (16%), Netherlands (15.2%), Finland (15%) and Italy (14.1%).

The raw numbers are equally jarring:

In Germany, the Muslim population would increase from 4,950,000 (6%) today to 17,490,000 (around 20%) by 2050 in the high scenario, compared to 11% in the medium scenario and 9% with no further Muslim migration.

In France, the Muslim population would increase from 5,720,000 (8.8%) today to 13,210,000 (18%) by 2050 in the high scenario, compared with 17.4% in the medium scenario and 12.7% with no further Muslim migration.

In Britain, the Muslim population would increase from 4,130,000 (6.3%) today to 13,480,000 (17.2%) in the high scenario, compared to 6.7% in the medium scenario and 9.7% with no further Muslim migration.

In Belgium, the Muslim population would increase from 870,000 (7.6%) today to 2,580,000 (18.2%) in the high scenario, compared to 15.1% in the medium scenario and 11.1% with no further Muslim migration.

The report's authors acknowledge that no one can know today what Europe's Muslim population of Europe will be in 2050, but they claim to know, more or less, the size of Europe's Muslim population today. In this aspect, some of Pew's calculations — which are said to be based on "analysis and projections of the best available census and survey data in each country combined with data on immigration from Eurostat and other sources" — fall short.

In Spain, for instance, Pew estimates the current Muslim population at 1,180,000 or 2.6% of the overall population. The Union of Islamic Communities in Spain (Unión de Comunidades Islámicas de España, UCIDE), however, estimates that Spain's Muslim population at the end of 2016 was 1,919,141, or 4.1% of the overall population.

The UCIDE figures — which posit that there are roughly 750,000 more Muslims in Spain today than the estimate proffered by Pew — are widely recognized in Spain as the most accurate assessment of the Muslim population in that country. It remains unclear why Pew failed to mention the UCIDE report in its source appendix.

The different estimates of the Muslim population in Spain today yield significantly different projections of Spain's Muslim population in 2050. According to Pew, Spain's Muslim population would increase from 1,180,000 (2.6%) today to 2,810,000 (7.2%) by 2050 in the high scenario, compared to 2,660,000 (6.8%) in the medium scenario and 1,880,000 (4.2%) with no further Muslim migration.

Applying Pew's projections to UCIDE's data, however, Spain's Muslim population would increase from 1,919,141 (4.1%) today to 4,570,242 (11.7%) by 2050 in the high scenario, compared to 4,326,128 (11%) in the medium scenario and 3,057,575 (6.9%) with no further Muslim migration.

In other words, the roughly 750,000 additional Muslims estimated by UCIDE in 2016 would — in the high scenario — yield around 1.8 million more Muslims in Spain by 2050 than projected by Pew.

In Austria, Pew estimates the current Muslim population at 600,000, or 6.9% of the overall population. However, the Austrian Integration Fund (Österreichische Integrationsfonds, ÖIF), an agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, estimates Austria's Muslim population at 700,000, or 7.9%. The difference of 100,000 Muslims, seemingly insignificant, will — in the high scenario — yield 350,000 more Muslims in Austria by 2050 than projected by Pew. In percentage terms, Austria's Muslim population would be nearly 25% according to the ÖIF, compared to 19.9% according to Pew.

In France, Pew estimates the current Muslim population at 5,720,000, but it admits that "France hasn't measured religion in a nationwide census since 1872." Nevertheless, Pew assures readers that "it is nonetheless still possible to measure religious identity and practice in France."

No one, in fact, knows the exact number of Muslims in France. What is known, however, is that millions of Muslims in France are permanently hidden from the official statistics. French analyst Yves Mamou explains:

"This figure [six million] does even not take into consideration the Muslim population that immigrated to France from North Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s. There are a few million of them — nobody knows how many exactly. They became French very early, and for demographers, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are not regarded as immigrants anymore. These Muslims are, rather, integrated into statistics as French citizens born of French parents. They are Muslim, but under the statistics radar."

(Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

In Germany, Pew "decided not to count" the one million plus Muslim asylum seekers who arrived in the country in 2015/2016 because "they are not expected to receive refugee status." Pew assumes they will either return to their countries of origin or be deported, even though Germany is notoriously lax in deporting illegal migrants. In fact, tens of thousands of migrants, including many convicted criminals, have been allowed to continue to live in Germany, often for decades, after receiving deportation orders.

Moreover, German authorities have admitted to losing track of potentially hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, many of whom are believed to be sustaining themselves on a steady diet of drug dealing, pickpocketing, purse snatching and other forms of petty crime, and who are responsible for the across-the-board increase of lawlessness on German streets.

Pew's analysis of the number of asylum seekers in Europe is highly confusing and virtually unintelligible to the lay reader. Much of the problem lies in the fact that the statistics compiled by European governments are incomplete and often contradictory. This confusion is compounded by nuances in how to define different categories of migrants, including regular migrants entering legally as workers and students, asylum seekers and refugees, as well as illegal migrants posing as refugees. Still, Pew's failure to provide clarity is exemplified in the following paragraph:

"Between the beginning of 2014 and mid-2016 – a stretch of only two and a half years – roughly three times as many refugees (1.2 million, or about 490,000 annually) came to Europe, as conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan continued or intensified. (These figures do not include an additional 970,000 Muslim asylum seekers and 680,000 non-Muslim asylum seekers who arrived between mid-2010 and mid-2016 but are not projected to receive legal status in Europe.)"

Pew admits that "we may be erring on the side of being too conservative in our overall estimates, because if significant numbers of those in legal limbo remain in Europe, their presence will have ripple effects increasing the future size of the continent's Muslim population."

More importantly, the Pew report downplays the societal effects of mass migration from the Muslim world by stressing that even if the Muslim population in Europe triples by 2050, it "will still considerably smaller than the populations of both Christians and people with no religion in Europe." The report entirely ignores the key issue of how Europe will integrate tens of millions of Muslim migrants whose values — including anti-Semitism, polygamy, female genital mutilation and honor violence — cannot be reconciled with those of Europe's Judeo-Christian and liberal-democratic heritage.

Finally, the Pew report stresses that the Pew Research Center is nonpartisan and "does not take policy positions." The report, however, appears to have been expressly written to debunk what it says are "sensationalistic claims" about the dangers of Muslim migration in Europe. A section on Germany assures readers:

"In general, Germans express positive views of refugees, with most saying they make Germany stronger because of their hard work and talents (59%), rather than being a burden by taking jobs and social benefits (31%). Most Germans also see Muslims in their country in a positive light: Roughly two-thirds say they have a "very favorable" (10%) or "mostly favorable" (55%) view of Muslims, compared with about three-in-ten who express a mostly (23%) or very (6%) unfavorable opinion."

In fact, widespread anger over Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door migration policy contributed to the September 24 election debacle in which her center-right CDU/CSU alliance won only 33% of the vote, its worst electoral result in nearly 70 years. The election results showed that more than a million traditional CDU/CSU voters defected to the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an upstart party that has harnessed voter anger over runaway immigration.

The Pew report's co-author, Conrad Hackett, a respected demographer, also claimed that by 2050, "there will be no country [in Europe] where Muslims make up more than a third of the population." His own report, however, clearly states that the Muslim population of Sweden could, in fact, comprise one-third of the population within the next three decades. In any event, the Muslim population of many European cities — Antwerp, Birmingham, Bradford, Brussels, Leicester, Malmö, Marseille — will almost certainly exceed one-third of the population by 2050.

In summary, the Pew report provides invaluable insights into the demographic challenges facing Europe during the next three decades; due to its uniqueness, the report is certain to be a primary reference source on Europe's Muslim population for years to come. At the same time, however, the report showcases the limits of estimating and projecting the number of Muslims in Europe —especially in a political climate marked by dogmatic multiculturalism and political correctness.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11545/how-many-muslims-in-europe Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

It seems as if many analysts gloss over the role of Islamic teachings --
the Quran, the Sunna, and fatwas -- by minimizing them

Religion (in this instance,
Islam) plays a smaller part in what makes terrorists tick than "the
[human] need for... personal significance... Especially when it comes to
violence that is shunned by most religions and most cultures, you need
validation from a group of people that would then become your reference
group. So the group component is very important, particularly when it
comes to antisocial activities that are forbidden or shunned...." — Arie
W. Kruglanski, distinguished professor of psychology at the University
of Maryland and former co-director of the National Consortium for the
Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism

It seems as if many analysts gloss over the role of Islamic
teachings -- the Quran, the Sunna, and fatwas -- by minimizing them
while highlighting matters such as the need for personal significance
and validation. By minimizing the content of the Islamic literature,
what they overlook is that Islamic teachings actually justify many
activities that they would label antisocial.

The validation jihadists get from their reference group is mainly
Islamic in words and meanings and that reference group has no
significance without referring to the Islamic texts. What seems a
universal dismissal or whitewashing -- intentionally or not -- of what
is written in the texts, has become so prevalent, that it undermines our
ability to recognize, let alone rectify, it.

Even relatively "moderate" Muslims, as hard as it is for a
Westerner to comprehend it, deeply believe that we are here just for an
insignificant instant, and that the really important life is yet to come in the afterlife.

Responding to findings of a recent study
on what motivates both ISIS fighters and those who combat them, Arie W.
Kruglanski -- distinguished professor of psychology at the University
of Maryland and former co-director of the National Consortium for the
Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism -- said:

"The ideology component addresses individuals' need to
matter and feel significant. ... It tells people what to do, such as
fight and make sacrifices, in order to gain respect and admiration from
others."

"Especially when it comes to violence that is shunned by
most religions and most cultures, you need validation from a group of
people that would then become your reference group. So the group
component is very important, particularly when it comes to antisocial
activities that are forbidden or shunned."

Kruglanski is one of many Western professionals who attempt --
through science -- to gloss over the very real distinction between
people who become jihadists in the name of Islam and those who do not.
It seems as if many analysts gloss over the role of Islamic teachings --
the Quran, the Sunna, and fatwas -- by minimizing them while
highlighting matters such as the need for personal significance and
validation. By minimizing the content of the Islamic literature, what
they overlook is that Islamic teachings actually justify many activities
that they would label antisocial. Many analysts also ignore that the
validation jihadists get from their reference group is mainly Islamic in
words and meanings and that reference group has no significance without
referring to the Islamic texts. It often seems as if political
correctness -- trying to persuade the readers that jihadists are no
different from other terrorists and Islamic teachings have no connection
to terrorism -- is substituted ignoring and minimizing the Islamic
texts. the Islamic. What are the roles played by Islam and its group dynamics?

What seems a universal dismissal or whitewashing -- intentionally or
not -- of what is written in the texts, has become so prevalent, that it
undermines our ability to recognize, let alone rectify, it.

There also seems to be a tendency often to put a finger in the Petrie
dish to compel the evidence toward a desired result, rather than to
follow the scientific evidence where it would lead. As Nathan Cofnas, a
doctoral student of philosophy at the University of Oxford, wrote in the journal Foundations of Science:

"Some prominent scientists and philosophers have stated
openly that moral and political considerations should influence whether
we accept or promulgate scientific theories... [M]isrepresenting
findings in science to achieve desirable social goals will ultimately
harm both science and society."

There are many variables that work together to make a Muslim believe,
for instance, that they love death more than unbelievers love this 'donya,' --
this inferior life. Even relatively "moderate" Muslims, as hard as it
is for a Westerner to comprehend it, deeply believe that we are here
just for an insignificant instant, and that the really important life is yet to come in the afterlife.

Many young Muslims might be possessed by their sadistic impulses and
welcome the thrill of being given permission to act on them, being told
that they are actually obligatory and good; that the person committing them is, in the view of the texts, heroic and will receive lavish rewards.

Other people, who feel dependent and need structure, might be
relieved by having every activity proscribed for them and might be
pleased to be possessed by their highly persuasive and controlling
Islamist leaders.

Confronting and defeating global terrorism is noble and necessary.
Scientific study of its roots, triggers, recruitment methods and
geographical ambitions is a crucial tool in the endeavor. Unless such a
study is completely insulated from the devastating effects of political correctness
– rather than by knowledge of what Islam actually says and conclusions
based on that evidence – the results will be based misrepresenting the
facts in order to continue obfuscating the true origins and nature of
Islamic terrorism.

A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11478/islamic-terrorism-political-correctness Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Welcome to the Palestinian mindset, where an Arab leader who talks
about peace with Israel is a traitor, while an Arab leader who talks
about destroying Israel or launching rockets at it, like Saddam Hussein,
is a "hero."

The decision to boycott a
visit later this month by US Vice President Mike Pence comes in the
context of absorbing the anger of the street. Abbas and his Palestinian
Authority have also made it clear that they no longer consider the Trump
administration an "honest" and "unbiased" broker in any peace process
with Israel. As such, the Palestinian Authority leadership announced
that it will reject any peace plan proposed by the Trump administration,
even if the plan gains the support of Arab countries such as Saudi
Arabia and Egypt.

The Palestinian strategy now is to work hard to thwart any peace
plan coming from the Trump administration. The Palestinians are
convinced that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Arab leaders
are cooking up a new "conspiracy" behind their backs -- with the aim of
"liquidating" the Palestinian cause by imposing an acceptable solution
on them. This, of course, has nothing to do with Trump's announcement on
Jerusalem. This has been the Palestinian position even before Trump
made his announcement, and it is unlikely to change after.

The question now is: How will the Arab regimes respond to this
latest charge of fratricide leveled against them by their Palestinian
brothers?

Once again, the Palestinians are disappointed with their Arab brothers.

A declaration of war on the US, in the Palestinians' view, would have
been the appropriate response to US President Donald Trump's December 6
announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

For the Palestinians, the anti-US demonstrations that took place in
some Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Iraq and Lebanon
were a welcome development.

But the protests have evidently failed to satisfy the appetite of the
Palestinians, who were banking on the Arab heads of state and
governments to take more drastic measures against the US.

The Palestinians are not expecting the Arab and Islamic armies to march on the White House or bomb New York and Los Angeles.

All they have gotten so far from the Arab and Islamic leaders and
governments are demonstrations on the streets and statements of
condemnations. Moreover, it does not look as if the Palestinians should
be expecting more from their Arab and Muslim brothers.

The sense of let-down on the Palestinians' part is large: the streets
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are rising with chants labeling the
Arab and Muslim leaders and regimes as "traitors" and "puppets" in the
hands of Israel and the US.

Almost every Palestinian protester interviewed
in the past few days about the Trump announcement spoke also of the
"weakness" and "cowardice" of the Arab and Islamic heads of state.

Welcome to the Palestinian mindset, where an Arab leader who talks
about peace with Israel is a traitor, while an Arab leader who talks
about destroying Israel or launching rockets at it, like Saddam Hussein,
is a "hero."

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is rumored to be working
with the Trump administration on a new peace plan to solve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is being dubbed a "traitor" and
"collaborator" by many Palestinians. Likewise, Egypt's President Abdel
Fattah Sisi is being accused by many Palestinians of being too soft on
Israel and the US and in collusion with the Trump administration.

Hassan Nasrallah, on the other hand, the secretary-general of the
Iranian-backed Hezbollah, who has called for a new intifada against
Israel, is being hailed as a "hero." So are his Iranian masters.

A Bahraini Interfaith group that visited Israel with a message of
peace and conciliation was met with Palestinian anger. The Palestinians
accused the Bahraini delegation of promoting "normalization with the
Zionist entity."

When Palestinians heard that the members of the Bahraini group might
visit the Gaza Strip, they waited for them with eggs and shoes to throw
at them at the entrance to the Gaza Strip. The Bahraini delegates later denied
that they had planned a visit to the Gaza Strip. However, this did not
stop Palestinian protesters from condemning the Bahrainis.

Echoing the embitterment towards the Arab "impotence" and "weak"
response to Trump's announcement, Palestinian Authority (PA) President
Mahmoud Abbas said that statements issued by governments and leaders
were inadequate in the extreme. In a message to the Arab Parliament,
Abbas expressed disappointment that the Arab and Islamic countries did
not take tougher measures in response to Trump's announcement.

For Abbas, the condemnations alone were "meaningless". At a minimum,
he stated, the Palestinians were expecting that Arabs and Muslims would
throw the US ambassadors out of their countries, shut down US embassies,
cut off their diplomatic relations with the US, or boycott US officials
and delegations and goods.

"Rejecting or saying that the [Trump] decision is null and void is insufficient," Abbas said. "We expect a series of measures and steps that would rise to the level of the event."

The reaction of the Palestinian street to the Arab and Islamic
"apathy" has been even stronger, especially after the meeting of the
Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo to discuss the Trump
announcement.

"As far as I'm concerned, all the Arabs are not worth two shekels," commented
a Palestinian interviewed in Ramallah." Another Palestinian remarked:
"There are no Arabs or Muslims left." A third Palestinians said, "I find
it strange that there are still some Arabs who expect anything good to
come out of the Arab league. When will the Arabs wake up?"

"Anyone who expects the weary Arab regimes to defend Jerusalem is living under an illusion," said
Palestinian political analyst Mohammed Ismail Yassin. "All one should
expect from these regimes is more failure. The Arab regimes are busy
shedding the blood of their people."

Meanwhile, it seems that the Palestinians are disgusted not only with
the Arab leaders, but also with their own president, Abbas. A
Palestinian public opinion poll
published this week showed that 70% of the Palestinians want Abbas to
resign. Three months ago, 67% of the Palestinians interviewed for
another poll said they wanted Abbas to resign. The latest poll found
that Palestinians favor more hardline leaders such as Fatah's imprisoned
leader, Marwan Barghouti, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The Palestinians are fed up with Abbas because, among other things,
they believe he is not being tough enough with Israel. Many would like
to see Abbas cancel the Oslo Accords with Israel and openly endorse the
"armed struggle." They also want him to halt security coordination with
Israel. In an attempt to appease the Palestinian street, Abbas and his
top officials have resorted to inflammatory rhetoric against Israel and
the Trump administration.

The decision to boycott
a visit this month by US Vice President Mike Pence comes in the context
of absorbing the anger of the street. Abbas and his Palestinian
Authority have also made it clear that they no longer consider the Trump
administration an "honest" and "unbiased" broker in any peace process
with Israel. As such, the Palestinian Authority leadership announced
that it will reject any peace plan proposed by the Trump administration,
even if the plan gains the support of Arab countries such as Saudi
Arabia and Egypt.

Mahmoud
Abbas and his Palestinian Authority have made it clear that they will
reject any peace plan proposed by the Trump administration. Pictured:
Abbas speaks during the U.N. General Assembly on September 20, 2017.
(Photo by Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)

The Palestinian strategy now is to work hard to thwart any peace plan
coming from the Trump administration. The Palestinians are convinced
that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Arab leaders are cooking
up a new "conspiracy" behind their backs -- with the aim of
"liquidating" the Palestinian cause by imposing an acceptable solution
on them. This, of course, has nothing to do with Trump's announcement on
Jerusalem. This has been the Palestinian position even before Trump
made his announcement, and it is unlikely to change after.

The Palestinians have placed themselves on a collision course not
only with the US, but also with the Arab world. The question now is: How
will the Arab regimes respond to this latest charge of fratricide
leveled against them by their Palestinian brothers?

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11546/palestinians-arab-rulers Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Bottom line? Our DOJ and FBI have been hopelessly corrupted by the Obama administration that used them to torment its opponents

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that there's no way he [Trump] gets elected - but I'm afraid we can't take that risk,"

writes FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair while spearheading both the Clinton email inquiry and the early Trump-Russia probe, adding,

"It's like a life insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40." (March 4, 2016)

Isn't it clear that "the path" was a developing strategy by which these co-conspirators would stop Trump by any means necessary? Was it at that meeting with "Andy" McCabe, then #2 at the FBI, where the three of them conjured the idea of using the FISA court to get warrants in order to unmask members of the Trump campaign so they could be surveilled?

Surely, they would find something criminal.

“Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” - Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin’s secret police

These people obviously believed themselves to be above the law. And then when Trump became the GOP candidate, they instituted the next phase: Use the fake dossier commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign, the one filled with all manner of fabricated crimes and offenses Trump had allegedly committed, maybe even pay Fusion GPS to amp it up, make it even more salacious. Then they would use it to bring about Trump's downfall?

They had planned to prevent his election.

When that failed, they planned to take him out before inauguration.

Once he was inaugurated, they doubled down.

In cahoots with Comey, they would lie, cheat and leak. Then, when for good reason, Trump fired James Comey, they, these arrogant, biased snobs at the FBI, shifted into high gear. They began leaking like sieves (remember Ellen Farkus?).

Then there is Charles Ohr of the DOJ and his lovely wife Nellie.

Ohr met with Christopher Steele before and after the election; Steele is the man who provided the dirt on Trump via his pals in Moscow. Then Mrs. Ohr got a Ham radio license! The NSA would be hard pressed to capture those conversations. So, an employee of the DOJ was paid by Fusion GPS to further harm Trump.

In an atypical moment of craven cowardice, Jeff Sessions foolishly recused himself from the made-up-out-of-whole-cloth collusion with Russia inquiry, turning the power over the eventual investigation to Rod Rosenstein, the man who embarrassed himself at the hearing before the House Oversight Committee yesterday. Jim Jordan, Trey Gowdy, and a few others asked him withering questions on point and got nowhere. The man defended Mueller's hiring a team chock full of progressive activists. The obvious conclusion is that their mission, which they chose to accept, was to find Trump guilty of an impeachable offense. There was no crime to begin with; Sessions never should have allowed this investigation. But this team of witch hunters was given free rein and an unlimited budget to get the job done.

This is a constitutional crisis so much worse than Watergate that it boggles the mind. Americans now are coming to grips with the fact that their government law enforcement institutions are corrupt to the core. The Left embraces this reality because they think it benefits them. The Republicans in Congress are, with several terrific exceptions, all Walter Mittys, powerful in their own minds but absolute wusses on planet earth.

Bottom line? Our DOJ and FBI (and the IRS) have been hopelessly corrupted by the Obama administration that used them to torment its opponents. Neither agency can now be trusted. They are tainted by their self-righteous campaign to destroy a man they loathe for, most of all, being an outsider. Trump was never a member of their exclusive club; he was busy working, building things all over the world, employing thousands of people, getting things done. Imagine his frustration at the snail's pace at which Congress works. They work hard at getting nothing done.

Hats off to Jim Jordon, Trey Gowdy, Louie Gohmert, Ron DeSantis, and Chuck Grassley, to name a few of the few. Their responses to the thoroughly ridiculous conflicts of interest that invalidate the Mueller investigation are normal, and they are justifiably outraged. The Democrats seem to have no problem at all with all the overt malice at the root of the Obama/Clinton plan to stop Trump.

Let us hope that the IG investigation into all of this will be legitimate, honest and above board. Is it looking into the Clintons' corruption re: Uranium One, and their habit of selling access? Will the IG report include information about the Clintons' takeover of the DNC, the hacking of the DNC computers that they refused to let the FBI examine? The murder of Seth Rich? Who exactly is Imran Awan, the IT guy who probably knows everything and likely was blackmailing a few Dems?

The damning texts from Strzok to his paramour, an FBI lawyer, are a sad commentary on the state of the FBI. The agency has a severe ethics problem and can no longer be trusted to enforce the law. Mueller once headed the FBI but did not know better than to stack his team with anti-Trump activists! That does not pass the smell test. He did because he knew no one would stop him. McCabe is tainted, as is Rosenstein. Time will tell us how Wray performs but he has yet to impress. As Camus said, "A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world." Our FBI and DOJ have become wild beasts that threaten American civil society.

Patricia McCarthySource: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/12/about_that_pagestrzok_insurance_policy.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Resistance to the Trump administration within the intelligence community is beginning to unravel.

Resistance to the Trump administration within the intelligence community is beginning to unravel.

When Mick Mulvaney was selected to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he complimented the staff for being professional. There are a significant number of CFPB employees opposed to the president and any of his appointees. They have formed a resistance group they call Dumbledore's Army. Although members of other departments, agencies, and bureaus do not call themselves Dumbledore's Army, they are essentially of the same mindset. Perhaps the largest number of these Dumbledores are in the Department of Justice and the intelligence community. They are mounting an attack on the Trump administration and are suffering one defeat after another. Things are falling apart.

The major attack is being carried out by Robert Mueller, the special counsel. Several of the attorneys on Mueller's team have collectively given over $62,000 in political contributions to Democrats. These are the contributions we know of. Three of his attorneys have reportedly been removed for anti-Trump bias. But as Rep. Jim Jordan said, "if you get kicked off the Mueller team for being anti-Trump, there wouldn't be anybody left on the Mueller team. There has to be more." This says a lot about the independence of the special counsel.

The most significant removal was that of Peter Strzok and his paramour, Lisa Page. Their correspondence contained such suggestions as "Trump should go f himself."

Every federal employee knows that emails are subject to monitoring. This is an example of extremely poor judgment. Perhaps they believed that if they were monitored, the monitor would have similar views and would not reveal their content. They were obviously wrong. They should know that there are moles even within Dumbledore's Army willing to leak information damaging to the resistance's cause. Andrew McCabe postponed an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee that was scheduled for the 12th. The Justice Department claimed that the cancellation was due to a "routine scheduling error."

The next significant removal is that of former Assoc. Deputy Attorney General Bruce G. Ohr. Ohr had several meetings with Christopher Steele, the author of the "dossier," and Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm. His wife, Nellie H. Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS and may have worked on the "dossier." Ohr reportedly did not reveal his October 2016 contacts with Steele or Simpson to DOJ leadership. We are supposed to believe that Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, knew nothing about the activities of Strzok and Ohr. If this is the case, Rosenstein has no business supervising people in the intelligence business.

Much of the information we have about this situation is the result of leaks. Leaks have plagued the DOJ for well over a year. Many of these leaks are clearly felonies. The former head of the FBI admitted in public that he was the source of a leak.

Has anyone in the leadership been prosecuted for leaking to the press? No.

No one in the intelligence community can claim he is unable to identify the leakers. These leaks can be traced. At the same time, the leadership of the intelligence community is denying information requested by Congress. Representative Nunes has instructed his staff to draft contempt-of-Congress citations against Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray.

Wray, appointed by President Trump, appears to have joined Dumbledore's Army. His response to a question about the Clinton email scandal:

I think of the inspector general's investigation as de novo in one sense, in which that it's objective, arm's length, no skin in the game, if you will. But you're right: the inspector general is not second-guessing prosecutorial decisions and things like that. However, the inspector general is looking at the very important question of whether or not improper political considerations factored into the decision-making. If he were to conclude that's what happened, then I think at that point, we're in a situation where we have to assess what else might need to be done to un-ring that bell."

Either this is an example of intentional obfuscation or Mr. Wray is an extremely confused individual.

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author ofThe Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy(Algora Publishing). He has a Master of Arts degree in international relations from St. Mary's University. He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/12/things_fall_apart_the_decline_of_dumbledores_army.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.